1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to processing a biological signal, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for measuring an animal's emotional condition and needs by acquiring and analyzing biological signals of an animal, which enable non-human animal-to-human communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
The breeding of pets continues to increase worldwide. Reportedly, about two million pets are bred in South Korea alone, forming a two hundred billion won pet related market.
Since it is absolutely impossible to communicate with animals using human languages, pet owners yearn to know the mental and physical condition of his/her pet(s). Attempts have been made to measure the physical and emotional condition of pets, but no progress has been made.
Korean Patent Application No. 2000-41437 discloses a remote pet breeding method via the Internet. In the disclosure, a pet is remotely monitored via the Internet and is fed by clicking on an instruction with a mouse. However, the disclosure is far removed from the measurement of the pet's physical and emotional state.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2001-28961 discloses a pet monitoring and feeding system to be used when the pet's owner is away. According to the disclosure, the location of a pet can be traced by attaching an RF tag to the pet, and the point of time for feeding and giving water the pet is controlled by a timer. However, this disclosure seems to be unrelated to informing the pet owner of the state of his/her pet.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 1998-3479 discloses an animal's intention translation method. An animal's sound or motion is transmitted to an animal's intention interpretative system and compared with previously stored reference data. A reference data corresponding to the animal's sound or motion is selected, and the animal's intention is translated based on the selected data in a human language so as to inform the owner of his/her animal's intention. However, the disclosure is not fully described such as to implement the method, for example, how to interpret the animal's sound and how to read the animal's intention from an image signal of an animal's motion. Accordingly, it seems impossible to understand the animal's intention or emotional state using the disclosed method.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,046,453 discloses an animal training apparatus. According to the disclosure, when a dog barks or does not behave in a trained way, a command signal is wirelessly transmitted to a receiver attached to its collar, in order to flow a cold fluid so as to stop the unexpected behavior of the dog. U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,428 discloses a method and apparatus for remote conditioned cue control of animal training stimulus. In the disclosure, when a trained dog behaves in an unexpected way, an electrical stimulus signal is applied to the dog for a short duration to call the dog's attention, and the intensity of the electrical stimulus signal is gradually increased when calling the dog's attention is unsuccessful. However, both U.S. applications described above seem to be unrelated to understanding the mental and physical state of animals.
PCT Patent Publication No. WO99/42968 discloses a pet locator system, which controls the location of a movable object, such as a pet, and informs a user when the movable object does not reach a specific place on time. PCT Patent Publication No. 96/30882 discloses a wireless pet containment system for keeping a pet within a space using a wireless transceiver. These two disclosures are not related to understanding the physical and mental state of animals.
As described above, conventionally, owners of trainers of pets of animals cannot be aware of the physical or mental state of the pets or animals, which cannot communicate with people using human languages.